London, Sep 28 (IANS) Scientists have used deadly bugs to encrypt a message in a way to render counterfeiting impossible.
Researchers at Tufts University in Massachusetts engineered strains of E.coli, associated with food poisoning, that glowed in different colours after exposure to light beams.
They were then placed in a grid, with specific colours representing specific letters of the alphabet and the numbers 1-9, to reveal a short message.
The bugs act like ‘living invisible ink’ and could be used by companies to defeat counterfeiting, the Daily Mail reports.
David Walt, professor of chemistry at Tufts University, said: ‘It’s another layer of protection, a way of sending secure messages, preventing counterfeiting and providing authentication.’
The message Walt’s team wrote was: ‘This is a bioencoded message from the Walt lab at Tufts university 2011.’
Walt said that messages exchanged by companies would be impossible to decipher, as unique growth chemicals could be used, and very hard to find as the bacteria are microscopic.
‘Both the location and the growth medium would be unknown to anyone except the shipper and receiver. The bacteria are invisible so they would be impossible to find.
‘This approach would likely be suitable for high-valued products, such as a drugs shipment for a pharmaceutical company,’ he said.
